The Peripheral

86

Looking up from the battle taking place on the Serpentine, he saw Ash approaching, in various tones of black and darkest sepia, along the pathway’s beige gravel, as if on hidden casters.

He’d been regretting Flynne missing the miniatures, though he himself preferred steam to sail, and the drama of long-range guns to these sparkings of tiny cannon. But the water in the region of the battle had scaled waves, and miniature cloud, and something about that always delighted him. The peripheral, seated on the bench beside him, seemed to be following it as well, though he knew attention to moving objects was just a way of emulating sentience.

“Lowbeer wants you back at Lev’s,” said Ash, coming to a halt in front of their bench. Her skirts and narrow jacket were a baroquely complicated patchwork of raw-edged fragments, some of which, though no doubt flexible, resembled darkened tin. She wore a more ornate reticule than usual, covered in mourning beads and hung with a sterling affair he knew to be a chatelaine, the organizer for a set of Victorian ladies’ household accessories. Or not so Victorian, he saw, as a sterling spider with a faceted jet abdomen, on one of the chatelaine’s fine chain retainers, picked its agile way up from the jacket’s waist, its multiple eyes tiny rhinestones.

“Flynne seemed worried, to be called back,” he said, looking up at her. “The timing was unfortunate. I was about to explain the framing narrative for Annie.”

“I’ve explained to her that you’re a publicist,” she said. “She seemed to understand it in terms of some already very degraded paradigm of celebrity, so it was relatively easy.”

“Public relations isn’t one of your areas of expertise,” he said. “I hope you haven’t left her with misconceptions.”

Ash reached out, brushed the peripheral’s bangs aside. It looked up at her, eyes calm and bright. “She does bring something to it, doesn’t she?” she said to him. “I’ve seen you noticing.”

“Is she in more danger now, there?”

“I suppose so, though it’s difficult to quantify. Some apparently powerful entity, based here, wants her dead, there, and brings increasingly massive resources to the task, there. We’re there to counter that, but in our competition with them, we’ve stressed her world’s economy. That stress is problematic, as it can and probably soon will produce more chaotic change.”

A sudden sharp crack from the battle in the Serpentine. Children cheered, nearby. He saw that one of the ships had lost its central mast to a cannonball, as had happened long ago, he’d no idea where, according to whatever account was being reenacted. He stood, extended his hand to the peripheral, which took it. He helped it to rise, which it did gracefully.

“I don’t like it, that she’s sending you to Daedra’s,” said Ash, fixing him with her vertically bifurcated gaze. It occurred to him that he’d now been around her so much that he scarcely noticed her eyes. “It’s almost certain that Daedra, or one of her associates, is our competitor in the stub. They may be unable to do more to Flynne, here, than destroy her peripheral, in which case she finds herself back in the stub, however painful the experience may have been. The same for Conner, in brother Anton’s dancing master. But you’ll attend in person. Physically present, entirely vulnerable.”

“Tactically,” he said, “I don’t see what other choice she has.” He looked at her, struck with the idea that she might be genuinely concerned for him.

“You haven’t considered the danger you’ll be placing yourself in?”

“I suppose I’ve tried not to consider it too closely. But then what would happen to Flynne, if I were to refuse? To her brother, mother? Her whole world?”

Her four pupils bored into his, her white face perfectly immobile. “Altruism? What’s happening to you?”

“I don’t know,” he said.